How to Market Your Book with Casual Word Games

A book is essentially “long form content”. This means that it takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days to consume (depending upon length and complexity of your book’s content.) Thus, even if you give away a free copy of your book, there is little chance that the recipient of your book will want to finish reading your book.

A blog entry, on the other hand is a shorter form of your content. It can be read within a few minutes and acts as a good proxy for the kind of content that might be there in your book. It allows potential readers to sample your reading before deciding to dive into your book.

But the problem with a blog is that there are so many blogs out there that the competing noise can drown out your writing. And it’s possible that a reader who is already bludgeoned with tonnes of material to read is fatigued and will simply skim over the content of your blog.

What’s the alternative?

Casual word games!

Casual word games are simple games that revolve around words or phrases and can be played by anyone for just a few minutes at a stretch. They are especially appealing to book readers.

Casual word games share the following characteristics:

They are fun.

They are easy to learn (and are often variations of childhood games.)

They appeal to book readers (who typically enjoy word games.)

They are short (typically taking less than 5 minutes) and refreshing.

They have viral potential (i.e. players tend to spread these games amongst their friends on Facebook and on blogs.)

Freado’s Hangman – The Ultimate Book Promotion Tool for Authors

As you may know, the developers at BookBuzzr have worked hard to develop a new word game. It’s a variation of the commonly played word game called “Hangman”. The game works like this: The player has to guess a word by filling in the letters one at a time. However, if the player makes more than 10 wrong guesses, the player is “hanged.” If the player guesses right, she earns points that can be redeemed for books on the Freado.com site.

The beauty about this is that BookBuzzr Author Pro authors can create their own Hangman games using words that are related to their books. Some of the benefits of creating these Freado’s Hangman games are as under:

– Games can be created by authors in just a matter of minutes

– Games can feature words or phrases related to your book (for example, if you have a romance book set in Paris, you can create a game that talks about the 10 most romantic places in Paris or about the 10 most romantic books of all time.)

– Games can be played on Facebook (a very important consideration for many people since they don’t like to leave the Facebook environment.)

– Games can be shared by readers on their own Facebook profiles and thus have huge viral potential

– If you are a BookBuzzr Author Pro author, games feature your book cover alongside the games that you create.

– Your readers can create their own games (and you can choose to have your book show up alongside these games if you so desire.)

Example of Hangman games for adults

Here is an example of a Hangman game that helps promote best selling author Ellen Maze’s Beth Rider books (which revolve around vampires.) Notice that Ellen Maze’s book shows up alongside the game and forms a powerful association in the mind of the reader.

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Tips for Authors Creating Hangman Word Games for Book Promotion

– Create as many games as you can. Each game played means that a new reader may get exposed to your book.

– Think about word game themes that might make your book go viral. Focus on topics that might interest your readers. Don’t simply create a game that is focused on your book. Don’t make it a sales pitch for your book. Instead focus on broader current issues. For example, you may want to create a game that creates awareness about breast cancer among women.

– Make it fun. For example, author Chetan Dhruve who has written a book on bad bosses is creating Hangman word games that feature creative bad words that you might want to use on your boss!

How to create a new Hangman game

Anybody (including readers, BookBuzzr Lite authors and BookBuzzr Author Pro authors) can create any number of Hangman games. However, only BookBuzzr Author Pro subscribers can get their book covers to show up inside the Hangman games.

If you are an author who has subscribed to BookBuzzr Author Pro you can create any number of Hangman games for free. To do so, play any Hangman game. Then click on “Create Your Own Game” (at the end of the game.) Then add in the words and the hints. Make sure that you’ve collected your words and hints before you create a game. Click here to know more about Freado Hangman games

How to post a Hangman game on your blog

After you create a game, you will find the “embed code” for the game. Simply copy-paste this code on your blog and it should become available to your visitors.

NOTE: Please do not put up more than 1 Hangman game on each page as it will not look good visually. If you have created multiple hangman games, your games will appear one after the other inside the same Hangman game area.

How to post a Hangman game on your Facebook fan page

In the future, you will also be able to add a Freado Hangman game to your page. This will make your Facebook fan page more engaging for your readers. We’re working on making it really easy for your readers to share Freado’s Hangman games on Facebook. Stay tuned!

One thought on “How to Market Your Book with Casual Word Games”

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If you're an author or publisher, you've come to the right place. BookBuzzr provides one of the most comprehensive set of book-marketing technologies and services in the world. We're constantly adding new features in a race with ourselves to build technologies that will help your books fly out of book-stores.